Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.
“She ain't any savage,” he announced. “Her mother was born right here in Bayport. And she knows, just as I do, that Bayport's the best place in the world; don't you, Mrs. Knowles?”
“Yes,” said Frances, “I am sure of it, Mr. Tidditt.”
So Asaph went away triumphantly happy. After he had gone I apologized for him.
“He's a fair sample,” I said. “He is a quahaug, although he doesn't know it. He is a certain type, an exaggerated type, of American.”
Frances smiled. “He's not much worse than I used to be,” she said. “I used to call America an uncivilized country, you remember. I suppose I—and Mr. Heathcroft—were exaggerated types of a certain kind of English. We were English quahaugs, weren't we?”
Hephzy nodded. “We're all quahaugs,” she declared. “Most of us, anyhow. That's the trouble with all the folks of all the nations; they stay in their shells and they don't try to know and understand their neighbors. Kent, you used to be a quahaug—a different kind of one—but that kind, too. I was a quahaug afore I lived in Mayberry. That's who makes wars like this dreadful one—quahaugs. We know better now—you and Frances and I. We've found out that, down underneath, there's precious little difference. Humans are humans.”
She paused and then, as a final summing up, added:
“I guess that's it: American or German or French or anything—nice folks are nice folks anywhere.”
THE END